Syria captures rebel base in key city of Homs

Analyst says U.S. weapons may be coming too late.

The Syrian military said Monday that it has captured a rebel stronghold in the city of Homs, which rebel forces had held for more than a year, raising questions about whether U.S. military aid is coming too late for the uprising against dictator Bashar Assad.

Any small arms that President Obama has said he wants to send rebel forces will not prevent Assad forces' from overtaking the city, which is the birthplace of the revolution against Assad, says Elizabeth O'Bagy, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

"For the battle for Homs, any program to send weapons from the U.S. will come too late," O'Bagy said. "Rebels are entrenched in a few strongholds in the city and really don't have the capacity to come back in any shape or form and will have to decide whether to withdraw or be all killed.

"It is likely the opposition will begin to withdraw from Homs and retreat into the countryside where they have more freedom to operate, as they've done in the past," she said.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed that Assad's forces and his Lebanese shiite militia allies made gains in Homs, but said their longevity is questionable.

"While it is true regime forces and Hezbollah took territory in the city Homs, it remains to be seen if they'll be able to hold it," Psaki said Monday. "Despite the onslaught, rebels continue to retain control in the outskirts of Homs."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group, however, denied that regime forces had seized all of the district of Khaldiyeh, which is where the rebels were entrenched in Homs. The group said there was still scattered fighting in southern areas of the neighborhood.

Syrian TV aired footage from the district showing troops roaming deserted streets and waving flags in front of shell-scarred buildings.

Government troops launched a broad offensive to retake rebel-held areas of Homs, Syria's third-largest city, a month ago. The city is a crossroads for the main highway from Damascus to the north as well as to the coastal region that is a stronghold of Assad's Alawite sect.

The district of Khaldiyeh had a population of about 80,000, but only about 2,000 remain there today as residents fled the violence, activists say. The heavy fighting over the past two years has caused extensive damage. Some buildings have been reduced to rubble.

In a report on Monday, Syrian state TV said "the Syrian army has restored security and stability in the whole neighborhood of Khaldiyeh in Homs."

Obama announced last month that he had decided to help arm the rebels after two years of fighting to ensure that they are not wiped out by Assad's forces. He has said he wants a political solution in which both sides agree to a transition of power from Assad.

But Assad has not agreed to renounce power and the rebels have said they need heavy weaponry to survive, such as anti-tank weapons, and also a no-fly zone imposed by Western air forces to stop Assad's unchallenged bombardments of rebel cities.

O'Bagy pointed out that in March 2012, after a major government push in Baba Amr, rebels held on as long as they could before retreating, O'Bagy said. Then they waited until the bulk of regime forces moved on to another hot spot until they could move back into the city.

By psychologically, losing Homs "will have a very big impact on the opposition" because Homs is the birthplace of the revolution, she said.

"This will cut off most of their lines of communications and make it difficult for the northern and southern opposition forces to coordinate the plans together. The two sides have been operating separately but this will make it even more so."

O'Bagy said the rebels will continue to operate in the south of Syria, where they use more guerrilla tactics.

In the northern city of Aleppo, several rebel factions including the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, attacked army posts in two neighborhoods in a an offensive titled "amputating infidels" the Observatory said.

It said rebels captured several buildings in the neighborhoods of Dahret Abed Rabbo and Lairamoun, and that eight government soldiers were killed.

"I don't think he's on the way to regaining control of the country," O'Bagy said of Assad.

In recent days rebels moved into Damascus and made limited gains in Aleppo, "enough to show the regime cannot conclusively retake all the country," she said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Courtesy: USA Today

British Women Join Jihad in Syria

Syrian supporters of Al-Nusra march in Aleppo
Photo: AFP

Britain’s Channel 4 aired an exclusive story this week about British citizens who have travelled to join the fight to oust Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad inside rebel-held territory in the country's north.

The story followed a woman calling herself “Maryam” who travelled from Britain to marry a rebel fighter from one of the jihadist rebel groups.

Maryam's marriage to her fighter husband, Abu Bakr, was arranged by his mother three months ago. She didn't meet him until after they were married, according to Channel 4.

Until her recent departure from the UK for Syria she lived what she describes as an okay life.

She and her husband are shown raising a child together, and are now expecting another. They say that their long-term objective is what they see as the liberation of Syria, followed by the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.

Abu Bakr fights with the Sunni jihadi militia known as Katiba al Muhajireen, whose members fight alongside bigger Islamic groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.

The leader of Jabhat Al-Nusra recently declared that his group is in favor of  establishing an Islamic caliphate in civil war torn Syria.

Maryam told Channel 4 she has no plans to return to the UK, ever, even if her new husband is killed in battle.

"I will stay here because I didn't come here for him. I wouldn't like to go back to the UK. I'll stay here, raise my children, focus on the Arabic language to communicate with the Syrian people,” she said.

She called on other Muslims to “wake up and stop being scared of death... we know that there's heaven and hell. At the end of the day, Allah's going to question you. Instead of sitting down and focusing on your families or your study, you just need to wake up because the time is ticking."

Courtesy: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Rhino population will plummet unless poaching eradicated: report

South Africa's rhino population will rapidly decline in the next three years if it is not protected and poaching is not eradicated, according to a report released.

At current poaching levels, rhino numbers would decline significantly by 2016, and possibly earlier in the Kruger National Park, said SA National Parks former CEO Mavuso Msimang, who headed the research.

At least 515 rhino had been killed in the country so far this year. A total of 668 rhino were killed in the country last year.

Msimang said although live birth rates exceeded death rates, more stringent measures should be implemented to protect them.

"Above all, we need first-rate intelligence. We need to be able to know what is happening."

The report, titled Rhino Issue Management Process, recommended greater political will from authorities, a central funding mechanism to fight poaching, harsher sentences to deter criminals, and evaluating the rhino horn trade with other countries, especially in Asia, where the horn was in demand.

Commercial trade in rhino horn was also recommended to curb poaching.

Msimang said: "In the absence of any initiatives whatsoever, demand will increase and possibly push the price to US100,000 [about R969,000] per kilogram."

He said corruption played a major role in making South Africa and other African countries a conducive environment for criminals.

Environmental affairs department deputy director general Fundisile Mketeni said the report was submitted to Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa in January.

"The report has greatly assisted the department in reviewing and updating its rhino response strategy. The recommendations were submitted to Cabinet in February and later to MECs responsible for environmental affairs."

Mketeni said the recommendation to allow commercial trade in rhino horn would form part of a rhino trade proposal to be submitted at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora in 2016.

The Kruger National Park continues to bear the brunt of poaching, with 321 rhino killed there since January.

Courtesy: Times Live

Syria’s Islamist fighters: Competition among Islamists

Jul 20th 2013: UNTIL last month the leader of Ahrar al-Sham (the Free Men of Syria), a large Salafist rebel group, went by a nom de guerre. Then on June 8th Hassan Aboud revealed his real name in an interview with Al Jazeera, the Qatari satellite television channel. Days later he attended a Salafist shindig in Cairo. Slowly but surely his group, which may number 10,000-20,000 fighters and leads the Syrian Islamic Front, a coalition of like-minded rebel groups, has become the most powerful outfit battling against President Bashar Assad.

Ahrar al-Sham’s success is partly due to its fighters’ discipline and ability, qualities that have enabled Syria’s Islamist rebels to outgrow the fractious secular ones. Since late 2011, when the group first emerged in Idleb, a north-western province, it has made a big impact on the battlefield. It was one of the first groups to use improvised explosive devices and to target the regime’s military bases in order to capture weapons. Soon other groups were clamouring to join it. By January this year Ahrar al-Sham had 83 units spanning the whole country, including Damascus and Aleppo, its second city. In March it led the attack on the north-eastern town of Raqqa, the largest one now under rebel control.

Hassan Aboud, no longer a mystery man

Politically Ahrar al-Sham has been clever. It sees the war in Syria as a battle between Sunnis and Shias and wants a Sunni-led Islamic state, but emphasises that its campaign is for Syria, not for a global jihad. It has retained a Syrian leadership, saving the group from suspicions laid against others that are led by foreign fighters or include a lot of them. Ahrar al-Sham does not go in for suicide-bombings, preferring to use remote-controlled car bombs. It also carries out public works, mending roads and providing food, in contrast to other groups, whose predations upset the locals.

Also, by remaining independent of other groups—it refuses, for instance, to come under the umbrella of the West’s favourite commander, the Free Syrian Army’s Selim Idriss—it has avoided being labelled in the West as a terrorist group, as has happened to Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate.

Some see the hand of Qatar behind its burgeoning success. “Ahrar al-Sham and its front is clearly positioning itself as an Islamist alternative to the disorganised moderate rebel fighters,” says Charles Lister of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in London. Its political arm is expanding too. Last month the Syrian Islamic Front, its umbrella, created a foreign-affairs department. It is active on Twitter. There have been reports that other Islamist groups, such as Saqour al-Sham, a leading member of the rival Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, may soon join the Syrian Islamic Front.

Hitherto the most prominent of the extreme Islamist groups has been Jabhat al-Nusra, which may have 7,000 or so fighters. But recently it has been bogged down in a power struggle with al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. After Jabhat al-Nusra’s leaders, led by Abu Muhammad al-Golani, refused to submit to his rule, the group split: a more extreme branch merged with the Iraqi brethren, forming the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. It has recently clashed with other Syrian groups, something Ahrar al-Sham has so far avoided. As Jabhat al-Nusra’s clout has weakened, Ahrar al-Sham’s has grown stronger.

Courtesy: The Economist

Britain bans Syria’s al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on terrorism grounds

[Editor: This blog has always opposed, Jabhat al-Nusra and criticized NATO for supporting it. It is good that at last the UK has done the right thing. I hope the US and other NATO countries will also follow the suit]

LONDON, July 19, 2013 — The British government says that it has banned Syria’s al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a move which makes membership in the extremist rebel group a criminal offense.

Britain’s Home Office says the Nusra Front, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra, had been added to its list of outlawed organizations, a U.K.-wide roster of foreign and domestic terror groups.

The government said Friday that it considered the Nusra Front and Jabhat al-Nusra nothing more than alternative names for al-Qaida, which has long been outlawed. The ban takes effect immediately.

Many Western governments have expressed concern that the Syrian conflict is serving as an incubator for Islamist terror.

Last week senior British lawmakers warned that jihadists in Syria “currently represent the most worrying emerging terrorist threat to the U.K. and the West.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Courtesy: The Washington Post

Women roaming alone in markets spread vulgarity: Pakistan clerics

Sat, Jul 20, 2013, Islamabad: Islamic clerics today barred women who are not accompanied by a close male relative from entering markets of Karak area in Pakistan's restive northwest.

A committee of 'ulema' or clerics in Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said only women accompanied by a "mehram" or close male relatives like a brother or son would be allowed into markets.

The clerics issued the directive during a meeting held at a mosque in Karak, TV news channels reported. The meeting, chaired by former Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Hafiz Abne Amin, contended that women roaming alone in markets were "spreading vulgarity" in society.

The clerics met the local administration and police and asked them to implement the decision. However, officials refused to facilitate the implementation of the decision. The clerics asked shop-owners not to sell goods to women shopping alone in markets.

Mir Zaqeem, head of the Khattak Ittehad, told the media that the decision was made because "most unaccompanied women were becoming a source of spreading vulgarity, especially in the holy month of Ramzan".

He claimed a group of such women were involved in thefts and robberies.

He further said the presence of unaccompanied women in markets went against Pashtun culture and religious norms.

Women accompanied by male relatives would not be stopped from entering bazars, he said.

Courtesy: Sify.com

Digvijaya’s secularism, Hindu dilemma, and India’s moral crisis
~~By Anil Athale

July 19, 2013: In response to accusations that he is anti-Hindu, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh has come up with a long list of Hindu things he does to prove he isn’t a Hindu-phobe. Among other things, he says in his blog that his home in Guna district has nine temples, where pooja is performed every day; he is chairman of a trust that runs a Ved pathshala; he fasts on every ekadashi. “All night kirtans are held on every ekadashi at my residence….”

He says this in order to prove that being a Hindu he is the exact opposite of the Hindutva preached by the Sangh Parivar. The Parivar, for its part, sees the Congress brand of secularism as essentially intended to demean Hindus and pandering to minorities. But his post shows that he equates Hinduism with rituals more than anything else.

Then we had Union Minister of State for HRD, Shashi Tharoor, pitching in. “We did not want India to become a Hindu Pakistan as unfortunately one particular political tendency in our country wanted it to become. We are not a Hindu Pakistan,” Tharoor said. This was in the context of Narendra Modi‘s “burkha of secularism” remark.

Now hear what Sir Mark Tully, a former BBC journalist who’s made India is home, has to say in his book, No full stops in India.

India is a Hindu nation forced to wear the ugly, formless garb of Western secularism. Hindu nationalism is a backlash against this pedantic Nehruvian aspiration, the 50-year-old soulless construct that sunders religion from its natural place in Indian public life.

It is good that in the run-up to the next elections, some basic issues about the ‘idea of India’ are being raised. Unfortunately, while politicians with half-baked ideas and acumen and a vocabulary relevant only to ‘tweets’ have monopolised the debate, no attempt has been made to put the current secularism versus communalism debate in a historical context.

This writer believes that India’s civilisation is in crisis as the result of our doctored past, and our inability to abolish the menace of casteism through religious reform. By leaving caste to politicians, we have compounded our problems with caste, and society is rotting at the core.

We should start with the history of the difficult relationships between Hindus and Muslims. Riots between Hindus and Muslims have had a long history even before independence. The riots in Jabalpur city of Madhya Pradesh in 1961 were particularly savage. India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a true liberal and was distressed by the events. He was wedded to building an India that would give freedom to all and discriminate against none on the basis of caste, creed or gender. When these riots took place he himself went into the causes and the reasons for hatred between Hindus and Muslims in India. He came to a conclusion that it was the history of constant invasions and past atrocities committed by Muslims, and the memory of it reinforced by school text books, that was at the root of it all.

However, in this writer’s view, Nehru’s understanding of his own country’s history (and even geography) was deficient. He arrogated credit for Indian ‘pluralism’ to himself and the Constitution he drafted. He ignored the fact that the concept of pluralism and individual freedom was in-built in Indian civilisation. It was one of its fundamental beliefs. He never paused to consider as to how and why a Hindu majority country did not have any takers for a narrow concept of a Hindu state. Instead of giving credit where it was due, he went about systematically destroying the very philosophy that made India adopt a liberal constitution and remain a functioning democracy, while elsewhere in the third world it failed.

Nehru then gave a directive to the education department to ‘revise’ history to play down the sordid past. The Communists and Leftists enthusiastically supported him. He then handed over the entire apparatus of education to Left-leaning individuals. The Left had its own agenda and believed that it must first ‘deconstruct’ India before it could build its Marxist Utopia. The whole government apparatus went systematically on a sustained campaign to deny, distort, and ridicule India’s cultural, philosophical and scientific heritage. Thousands of years of history were dismissed in a few paragraphs while the authors went on to glorify the British and the Nehru family.

Located amidst states of South Asia like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which are at various stages of being ‘failed states’, India is thought to be the only stabilising factor. Yet unknown to most is the fact that the Indian state and its society are rapidly rotting at the core.

Our political structure was borrowed from Britain with its two-party system. It failed to work in the Indian setting, with the sub-continent’s diversity and multiplicity of parties. In most Indian elections, voting has not exceeded 60 percent and the winning candidate often secures less than 40 percent of the polled votes. Winning parties often have vote shares of a bare 24 percent of the total electorate, voting and non-voting. This, combined with the apathy of the middle class and the majority Hindus, means that well organised minorities have begun to wield disproportionate influence on the state.

While India, in the last decades of the 20th century and in the early 21st century, was making great strides in economic development, the core of its society was being slowly eaten away by the cancer of corruption – not just material (which was rampant), but moral too. The soul of India was being systematically destroyed.

India’s fundamental belief system stresses the individual and his free choice in matters of faith. This resulted in an ‘atomised’ society, which had no corporate existence. Social cohesion was destroyed by the caste system based on birth. The only field of activity that had a unifying force was politics, as Gandhi showed with his extraordinary mobilisation of the masses for the freedom movement. But post-independence, politics revolved around dividing society in ever-increasing caste groups; all vying for concessions and job quotas. Towards the end of the last century India has begun to resemble African nations like Rwanda and Burundi, with a resurrected tribalism.

One must realise that Indians in the 21st century are still prisoners of a doctored past, a past that was shaped to serve the ends of the ruling clique. Our politicians have gone about dividing society in a manner that put even the British imperialists to shame.

As George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four:

“But where did that knowledge of past exist. And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past” ran the party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”.

One of the dominant philosophical world-views in India is that objects and thoughts or ideas in the universe can be divided into three Gunas, or attributes; Sat (moral and righteous), Raj (material) and Tam (literally meaning darkness, but pointing to the undesirable attributes of aggression, violence and other animal instincts). These are not water-tight categories – every individual and all living beings are said to have these three attributes in varying degrees. Thus the reality of the world is never black or white but complex. This is at the base of celebrated Indian tolerance.

Tolerance has a wider connotation. Every living being, in the Hindu view, has a soul that is divine; God is not something external, but a part of us all. We have 330 million Gods, was an old saying, when Indians (who had a great head for numbers) thought that number to be the figure of living species. To a Hindu, all life, not just human life, is divine. Since divinity is all-pervading and universal, Indian philosophers have always accepted that there can be several paths to the realisation of God or the ultimate truth. Thus diversity in religious belief is accepted by Hindus as normal and natural, and not merely tolerated. From this basic acceptance of diversity springs the ‘tolerance’ that Indians seem to have in such abundance.

Indians accept that the main function of the state is to uphold Dharma, which in this context is defined not as religion, but one’s duty in life. This is in direct contrast with the Western view that sees the state as a necessity to control and regulate the competition between men. In the Indian view, contentment is the ultimate goal that leads to happiness. In the materialist concept of the West, constant progress is the goal. There is no room for self-satisfaction and constant striving for bigger, better, and deadlier is rational. It is possibly this factor of rationality that saw the West emerge dominant in the world from the 16th century onwards. In philosophical terms the Western goal is conquest of nature. Human existence is thus a constant struggle either with nature or with other human beings. In contrast to this, the Eastern ideal is coexistence with nature.  Once the conflict model is adopted, then violence either against nature or another of the species is inevitable.

The ‘old’ world civilisations of India and China face a dilemma. While the people have given up the old concept of Dharma, or the goal of contentment, society is still suffering from a hangover of the past. If Indians desire the fruits of ‘progress’, then the next logical step is to accept the Western view of rationality and also structures of state. A society then has to be ready to deal with conflict and violence. This basic issue has ramifications for both internal as well and external relations. It is an Indian’s inability to see this clearly that is at the root of current intellectual confusion that makes Indian leaders and society unprepared to face the challenges to unity.

Hindus of India face a cruel dilemma: how to counter intolerance without being intolerant? A dilemma being faced by the West today is similar when it counters militant—and sometimes violent—Islam. It is not that Indians lacked a model. In the 17th century, Shivaji the Great in Maharashtra successfully fought intolerance and the political domination of Islam while scrupulously respecting religious Islam. His army had several Muslims at very responsible positions (The Admiral of his fleet, for instance, was Daulat Khan), who remained loyal to him in this fight. But Shivaji, the Great, was an embarrassment and any mention of his struggle is politically incorrect today. This has something to do with the fact that the bulk of the Indian population in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal (the very areas where the Islamic revolution was stronger) had no tradition of resistance to oppression and felt uneasy at the thought of  their own past. Shivaji was inconvenient and was to be ignored as an aberration.

It is easy to blame the British or Islam for all our ills, but ‘casteism’ is the greatest curse of Hinduism. Unfortunately, all the efforts at eradicating this evil from Hindu society have been the work of ‘modernists’ or reformers. The religious hierarchy has remained aloof from it. Mere laws or social reforms could not change the status of the lower caste people. What was needed was a religious revolution, which never happened. The problem was that in a ‘unorganised’ faith like Hinduism, there is no way one can issue a Papal Bull to end retrograde practices. Such a society is vulnerable when faced with an organised enemy who knew its goals.

India and its civilisation are endangered not by any external force but by Indians themselves. Towards the end of the 20th century, India resembled a candle that was burning at both ends. The single biggest factor in this dilemma is the self- hatred of Hindu intellectuals, who percolated this to the masses. No one feels that they have any stake in the survival of the faith, society or the nation. Hinduism is secular to the core, in the sense that it has no single prophet, unified dogma or concept of being a chosen race. Its basic tenets accept all prophets and all faiths and stress on the ultimate unity.

What this gave Hindus was a fundamental right to choose their own paths of life, salvation and duty. This led to cultural relativism and a multilingual society. But as Dharma degenerated, the relativism was carried to the moral/ethical field, giving rise to the all-pervasive ‘chalta hai’ (anything goes) philosophy of life. In a fundamental sense, the death of India is inevitable once this virus of amorality caught on and the country becomes a vast ethical slum, wallowing in moral squalor. The corruption, treachery, betrayal and cowardice that took place in the past were all by-products of this basic malady. Militant ideologies will merely kick a door that was already rotten to the core.

The author is a former soldier and military historian.

Courtesy: First Post

Edgy new play spotlights death row teens in Iran

Iranian theater director, Amin Miri, the third from left in the 2nd row, poses with his theater group prior to their performance, of "The Blue Feeling of Death," outside the theater hall in Arasbaran Cultural Center in Tehran.

Iranian Actors and Actresses perform a scene
from "The Blue Feeling of Death" in Tehran.

19th July, 2013, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The curtain opens. Six nooses hang above a group of teenage inmates, who are making chairs in a prison workshop to be used as platforms in their own hangings. The audience gasps.

This is theater that's raw, edgy and political — and it's all been cleared by the Iranian authorities, even though they have tightened controls on speech.

The production, translated from Farsi as "The Blue Feeling of Death," opened last month as a showcase of activist art against Iran's legal codes that allow death sentences for juvenile offenders — who then wait until their 18th birthday for execution.

Opening night came even as Iranian officials tightened controls on social media and other forms of political opposition ahead of last month's presidential elections, whose centrist winner, Hasan Rouhani, has brought hope of reversing some of the crackdowns.

The play tells the true stories of seven juvenile death row inmates and the families on all sides of their crimes. It also seeks to raise funds for defense lawyers and social workers trying to overturn death sentences on young people through Iran's system that allows families of victims to spare the life of the prisoner.

"Through the stage, we can affect many people — even the families of victims," said the play's director, Amin Miri, following a recent performance. "We are trying to give greater courage."

The play also shows the unpredictable enforcement of Iran's cultural overseers.

Dozens of journalists, filmmakers and others have been arrested or fled the country in recent years over allegations of opposing Iran's Islamic establishment or stirring political dissent. These red lines still exist, but officials can give their nod to works exploring social issues or other topics that don't directly target the ruling clerics.

In 2008, a documentary filmmaker had permission to research Iran's rising number of sex-change operations, which have been legal under a religious edict, or fatwa, issued shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The 2012 Oscar-winning film, "A Separation," by Asghar Farhadi, was hailed by Iranian authorities even though its plot is a harsh commentary on Iranian society through the viewpoint of a collapsing marriage. In 2003, Farhadi directed "Shahr-e Ziba," named after the neighborhood where the Tehran Correction Center is located, to portray the destinies of young convicts as well as the families of victims.

Still, last year Iranian officials ordered the closure of the House of Cinema, an independent film group that had operated for 20 years and counted Iran's top filmmakers, including Farhadi, among its members. The site has remained closed because of hard-line pressure despite a ruling to allow its reopening.

"Blue Feeling" has been able to walk the line between criticizing the legal codes that allow death sentences for young people — a practice condemned by Amnesty International and other rights groups — and showing that there are options in Iran's system for mercy.

Once a death sentence is imposed in a murder case, the victim's family can withdraw the punishment in place of jail time — and often payments known in the Islamic world as "blood money."

Eighteen death row inmates — some as young as 15 — were interviewed to build the play's story line, director Miri said. He was inspired to explore the issue by a move by some judges to postpone carrying out the hangings of inmates once they reached 18 in hopes of persuading victims' families to withdraw the punishment.

Among the stories in production is that of two young girls sentenced to death for killing their father when they were 12 and 15. Their fate — execution or imprisonment — is in the hands of an uncle, aunt and their grandmother.

"I felt as if I was communicating the message of the play when I heard and saw the reactions from the audience," said Mina Karimi Jebeli, who plays one of the young murderers.

At a recent performance at the Arasbaran Cultural Center in north Tehran, some of the theatergoers sobbed.

"It was very emotional," said 23-year-old Arezou Ziaei. "I cannot believe that such people are waiting for death."

Executions in Iran are increasingly carried out in prison gallows — often with a chair or bench kicked out from under the inmate — but public hangings still occur, with the condemned prisoner hoisted up by a crane attached to a rope and noose.

In the past, the age of criminal responsibility in Iran was defined by "maturity," — 9 for girls and 15 for boys. Iran's parliament, however, amended laws in 2011 to block death sentences on anyone under 15 and give judges more leeway to impose substitute sentences on juveniles convicted of murder.

While the number of juveniles sentenced to death in Iran is relatively small, rights group say it violates international treaties on treatment of young suspects.

In January, a 21-year-old Iranian man was executed for his alleged role in a murder committed when he was 17, activist groups say. In 2012, at least one of the more than 300 people executed in Iran had been sentenced as a juvenile.

Two other countries, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, are known to have executed someone in recent years for a crime committed before they were 18, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. Last September, Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N. special rapporteur on Iran, urged Iranian authorities to abolish capital punishment in juvenile cases.

A lawyer, Nemat Ahmadi, welcomed the performance as a chance to push lawmakers and authorities to contemplate further judicial reforms.

"Such a play," he said, "is able to awaken public opinion."

Courtesy: Yahoo.com

Vaughn Ross Execution: Ex-Texas Tech Student Executed For Double Murder

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A former Texas Tech graduate student was executed Thursday for a double slaying in Lubbock a dozen years ago.

Vaughn Ross, 41, was condemned for the January 2001 fatal shootings of an 18-year-old woman with whom he had been feuding and an associate dean at the university who was with her at the time.

No relatives of friends of Ross were there for the execution, yet he told them he loved them, thanked them for their support and urged them to stay strong.

"You know I don't fear death," he said, strapped to the death chamber gurney. "I know we weren't expecting this, but this is what it is. We know the lies that were told against me in court. We know it's not true."

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect, Ross took several breaths, then began snoring. He let out a gurgle, snored once more and then stopped all movement. He was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. CDT, 22 minutes after the lethal drug was injected.

Ross was executed for the slayings of Douglas Birdsall, 53, the associate dean of libraries at Texas Tech University, and Viola Ross McVade. McVade was the sister of Ross' girlfriend and was not related to the convicted killer.

Authorities believed Birdsall and McVade were ambushed in an alley behind Ross' apartment after Ross had ordered McVade's sister to leave. A bicyclist later spotted their bodies in a car in a gully at a Lubbock park.

Court documents said Birdsall had been looking for a prostitute and that a friend of McVade introduced him to her that evening. Prosecutors contend McVade was the intended target, and that Birdsall was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The execution, the 10th this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state, came less than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal to block the punishment.

Ross contended his previous appeals attorneys neglected to note that his trial lawyers didn't present evidence that may have persuaded jurors to sentence him to life in prison. Assistant Texas Attorney General Tomee Heining argued that that Ross' trial lawyers called witnesses on Ross' behalf and managed an "admirable mitigation defense" even though Ross had instructed his family and friends not to cooperate.

Detectives said they linked Ross to the deaths after finding his and Birdsall's DNA on part of a latex glove in the car. DNA tests on Ross' sweatshirt also detected blood from both victims.

Ross, from St. Louis, came to Texas Tech for graduate work in architecture. When questioned by detectives, he acknowledged arguing and threatening McVade. He also acknowledged wearing latex gloves but said they were to protect his hands while he was doing some cleaning with bleach.

While in jail, Ross phoned his mother, who asked if he had any involvement in the slayings. He replied he "might have," according to the tape-recorded call.

"I've always said a guy could never lie to his mama," Matt Powell, the Lubbock County district attorney who prosecuted the case, said last week. "It was the closest thing we had to a confession."

Birdsall's blood and glass from shattered windows of his car were found in the alley behind Ross' apartment, along with a shell casing matching casings inside Birdsall's car. Prosecutors believed the latex glove was torn when Ross moved Birdsall's body from the front to the back seat so he could drive the car to the gully.

A brother of Birdsall was among people watching the execution through a death chamber window. He declined to speak with reporters.

Birdsall's son, Nathaniel, told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, his father raised him to believe the death penalty was unjust.

"I am saddened that the loss of two lives will be needlessly compounded by the taking of a third," he said.

At least six other Texas prisoners have execution dates set for the coming months, including one later this month.

Courtesy: Huff Post College

Appeasing the majority?

~~Tahir Mahmood

[Editor: This is a totally one sided article, which masqueraders the main issues.  Now the question is: if Sikhism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, do not promote "Varna System" or do not have such provisions in their faiths, then on what grounds, should a converted "Buddhist" or "Muslim" get the benefits of Scheduled Caste India? The fact of the matter is that, Indian politicians have reduced Indian Constitution into a joke of sorts, trying to appease everyone for vote bank politics]

Pitched political battles are being waged between the votaries of secularism (the Congress) and those who complain about minority appeasement (the BJP). But neither of them discuss a third possibility : Indian-style secularism actually appeases the majority, at the expense of the country's two largest minorities — Muslims and Christians. It`s worth pointing out, in that regard, the religious provisions in the Constitution as well as the lopsided interpretation of secularism since the very beginning of the constitutional era.

At the time of its adoption, the Constitution neither declared any state religion nor proclaimed India a secular state. By pronouncing 'equality before law and equal protection of laws' as fundamental rights, it mandated the state not to discriminate between the two 'on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them' in respect of public places and employment or appointment under the state.

 This was considered enough to make the country `secular` without a formal declaration to that effect. The principle of undeclared secularism was, however, countered by several community-specific provisions either initially incorporated into the Constitution or inserted by some early amendments to it. In the years to come, the state applied, and the courts interpreted, some general constitutional provisions in ways that benefited particular religious communities.

Twenty-six years after its promulgation, the Preamble to the Constitution was amended to include the word `secular`, but all the religion-based provisions survived and remain in force to this day. The custodians of state authority have also continued to apply, and the courts of justice interpret, the general constitutional provisions the same way as before. Successive governments and the judiciary have consistently believed that these special constitutional provisions, administrative measures and judicial decisions detract nothing from the secularity of the state.

Among the religious provisions in the original version of the Constitution, in the chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy, was Article 48 that mandated the state to protect by law the cow and its progeny. Interpreting the laws, the Supreme Court made it clear that the mandate was based on Hindu beliefs. In a later case, the court even said that secularity of the state would not be `relevant` for deciding whether an administrative action mitigating the rigidity of any such law on religious grounds was permissible.

While another Article protected the religious right of the Sikhs to carry the kirpan, among the religious provisions introduced later by way of amendments was Article 290-A, directing the governments of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to pay from their respective exchequers substantial annual annuities to dewasom temples.

The word `only` in the non-discrimination provisions of the Constitution left room for according special favours to particular sections of citizens. Combining caste with social backwardness, the Constitution empowered the state to grant special favours to Scheduled Castes by way of protective discrimination, deciding which castes would be brought under the umbrella.

Although social stratification has always been, and remains, a general phenomenon shared by all religious communities, a Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order was quickly promulgated, furnishing the initial list of `Scheduled Castes`, subject to a condition that only Hindu members of those castes would be covered by the list. Converts to Buddhism from castes named `neo-Buddhists` were to be excluded.

While the Sikhs succeeded just six years later to get their lower castes included, the Buddhists had to wage a 40-year-long struggle to get relief. The Muslims and Christians, who also share those castes, are still struggling against this discriminatory provision. The theoretical egalitarianism of these global faiths is invariably cited to keep their followers out of the ambit of the privileged class of Scheduled Castes.

 If a Scheduled Caste Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh were to embrace Christianity or Islam, he would lose his SC status and all its attendant privileges. But should he ever return to his original faith, the privileges would be automatically restored. Although this is not made clear in the Constitution or the Scheduled Castes Order of 1950, this is how the apex court has interpreted the law, asserting it would `serve the interest of justice.`

But no government or court has ever introduced the `interest of justice` principle in respect of any non-minority institution. On the contrary, recognition of `minority character` of even historic minority institutions has been a hard nut to crack. Despite constitutional provisions, state actions and judicial interpretations of a clearly religious nature, the state`s blanket secularity has always been claimed as an alibi to deny any form of `protective discrimination` to Muslims and Christians.

Secularism has been developed on these clearly non-secular lines by political parties claiming to be absolutely secular and minority-friendly. How about parties who denounce their `pseudo-secularism` accusing them of `minority appeasement`? Will the policies hitherto followed to interpret state secularity entitle votaries of `cultural nationalism` to develop secularism to their liking? In view of the forthcoming possibility of change of guard this question merits serious consideration by all right-thinking citizens.

Courtesy: The Times of India

Petition to stop death penalty for 400 prisoners in Pakistan

Sunday, July 14, 2013: Lahore: Some 400 death row prisoners in Pakistani jails should not be executed, a petition filed in a court here has appealed to the Pakistan President.

The interior ministry has recently sent 400 cases of condemned prisoners to President Asif Ali Zardari for decision, citing overcrowded jails, among other reasons.

Barrister Zafarullah Khan, who filed a petition in the Supreme Court Lahore registry yesterday pleaded to the court to halt execution of all death row prisoners whose mercy petitions were pending before the President.

A petition for striking down the capital punishment in the country is already lying pending with the apex court.

The issue of execution of condemned prisoners has come to light post the change in regime in the country.

The petitioner argued: "Elimination of human lives without deciding the law points will be illegal and unconstitutional and be a great threat for the country's judicial system." He said as the main petition on the subject was pending the interior ministry's act amounted to 'contempt of court'.

He prayed to the court to strike down the death penalty in books of law as it was unconstitutional and that such order was necessary to save the innocent from being wrongly convicted under the current system.

The petitioner said: "Weak and inefficient prosecution most of the time resulted in conviction of innocent people and the execution of former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was also a glaring example of this.

Corruption in society has also overwhelmed the criminal justice system in the country whereof the chances of the innocent being declared guilty has increased manifold."

Right to Life had been embodied as natural right in Article 9 of the Constitution whereas end to life through unnatural means was quite incompatible and inconsistent with the concept of right to life, the petitioner said.

As the PML-N, considered to be a right-wing party, it is expected that it will defend capital punishment and ensure execution of condemned prisoners once it has its president after September 9, on the completion of Zardari's term in office.

PTI

Courtesy: Zee News

Death penalty cases on decline
~~By Wesley Brown 

Sunday, July 14, 2013: After Richmond County’s most recent execution – Mark McClain in 2009 – Augusta District Attorney Ashley Wright noticed a trend taking shape in capital murder trials.

“Our juries are reserving the death penalty only for those cases which are the most hideous,” said Wright, who is encountering juries more willing to sentence convicted killers to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

With a national movement to abolish capital punishment spreading across the United States, enthusiasm for the death penalty is on the decline.

In May, Maryland became the 18th state – and the first south of the Mason-Dixon Line – to repeal death-penalty laws. Since 2007, five states have abolished the death penalty, and last year, 43 prisoners were executed, down from 98 in 1999.

In Georgia, the trend is much the same. For the third time this century – and the first time in five years – the state had no executions in 2012.

Tonight, the state plans its second execution this year. Warren Hill, 52, was sentenced to death for fatally beating an inmate in 1990 while serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend. His lawyers argue that Hill is mentally disabled and therefore shouldn’t be put to death because of state law and a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The first Georgia execution in 2013 was Andrew Allen Cook, a 38-year-old inmate put to death in February for killing two Mercer Uni­ver­sity students in 1995 at Lake Juliette, about 75 miles south of Atlanta.

More than 15 years after Robert Wayne Holsey was convicted of murdering a Baldwin County sheriff’s deputy, Fred Bright, the district attorney of central Georgia’s Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit, received an execution order last month that’s becoming a rare sight in prosecutor offices statewide.

On June 10, the U.S. Su­preme Court denied Holsey’s ninth and final petition to be removed from death row, clearing the way for his execution, possibly by early fall.

“It’s more difficult this day in age to get the death penalty,” said Bright, the outgoing chairman of Georgia’s Pro­se­cuting Attorneys’ Council. “There’s just more hurdles.”

An analysis compiled in Jan­uary by the Department of Cor­rections shows capital punishment in Georgia is not what it was in the early 20th century.

On average, a dozen people were executed each year between 1926 and 1956. Before that, executions were public spectacles in Georgia; the state recorded more than 500 legal hangings between 1725 and 1925.

Today, the electric chair has been put to rest and lethal injection isn’t thought to be as painless and humane as lawmakers were told it was at its inception in 2001.

Prosecutors are choosing life sentences to more quickly provide victims’ families closure in state court systems that they say are riddled with delays and overworked capital defense lawyers.

Bright said that after he became district attorney in 1994, his office averaged two “knockdown, drag-out” death penalty trials for six years. Since then, the district has tried only one capital murder case, and today it has only one death penalty trial pending.

“It does not surprise me that the numbers are dwindling,” Bright said. “I’d like to think that taking a tough line on murder cases might have deterred some criminals, but the fact of the matter is you do not have as many death penalty cases anymore. That’s the way the system is.”

Bright said the Holsey trial, his longest, lasted 17 days. In Fulton County, capital murder trials are known to take as long as six weeks. In Augusta, a trial can last half as long.

“If I had a true death penalty case, I would still ask for it now,” Bright said. “But it just seems getting them up to the plate is more difficult.”

The last inmate to be executed from Bright’s district was Brandon Rhode in 2010. He broke into the home of a Jones County family in 2007 and killed an 11-year-old boy, 15-year-old girl and their father.

Daniel Lucas, Rhode’s co-defendant, remains on death row. After six years, his case continues to be appealed.

Six months before Mc­Clain was put to death for robbing and fatally shooting an Augusta pizza store manager, then-Gov. Sonny Perdue granted prosecutors the option to seek life sentences without the possibility of parole in cases that don’t carry the death penalty.

The legislation immediately changed trial outcomes in Richmond, Columbia and Burke counties; juries began returning verdicts one to two votes shy of the death penalty, Wright said.

Before 2010, Georgia prosecutors were required to first seek the death penalty in murder cases before asking for a sentence of life without parole.

“When I started prosecuting, it was either life or death, but since that third option was provided, it has been more difficult for 12 members of a jury to agree to impose a death sentence, which is an awesome burden, an awesome burden, to put on people,” Wright said. “It’s an important function of society for the community to decide what is appropriate in the most hideous of murder cases.”

Wright said the shift in legal policy has altered the way prosecutors analyze cases.

“Quite frankly, trials move a lot quicker if you do not seek the death penalty,” Wright said.

In cases involving defendants with intellectual disabilities, though, postponements are common.

Hill came within hours of death in July 2012 and in February before scheduled executions were halted by last-minute court orders. In 2006, controversy swirled around whether Holsey suffered from mental impairment. Both Holsey and Hill scored slightly above the IQ range of mental retardation.

The Georgia Council on De­velopmental Disabilities has called on the state to alter the burden of proof required to execute criminals who suffer from mental retardation to include clinical studies in addition to IQ tests.

“We are about to execute a man who was diagnosed with mental retardation,” Eric Jacobson, the council’s executive director, said while campaigning last week to stop Hill’s execution. “We have a Su­preme Court decision and a general acceptance in our society that our most vulnerable citizens should not be executed. We need to honor that.”

Courtesy: The Augusta Chronicle

High court may be last hope for 'mentally retarded' man

The case of Warren Lee Hill offers a test of the Supreme Court's ruling in 2002 that the death penalty constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" for the mentally retarded.

WASHINGTON — Warren Lee Hill's crimes don't elicit many pleas for mercy, but it's his mental capacity, not his murderous past, that may give him one last shot at avoiding the death penalty.

Hill claims to be "mentally retarded" in the lingering terminology of the law, a phrase replaced by the more palatable "intellectually disabled" several years ago. The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that people with "mental retardation" should not be subject to the death penalty. And yet, that is what Hill likely faces in Georgia — unless the high court intervenes.

The 52-year-old prisoner's case has galvanized the nation's disability community. The American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities filed a lengthy brief last week urging the court to stay Hill's execution, citing experts' determinations that he is, indeed, mildly "retarded."

However, Hill's petition is pending before Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented in the court's 2002 Atkins v. Virginia ruling that executions of mentally retarded criminals constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the 8th Amendment.

There isn't much dispute about Hill's crimes. He killed his girlfriend in 1986 by shooting her 11 times. He was serving a life sentence when he killed a fellow inmate in 1990 by bludgeoning him with a nail-spiked board. At trial, he did not claim mental retardation, and he was sentenced to death.

The dispute — and the attention the case has received — stems from Hill's intellectual capabilities. His lawyers say that his IQ is 70, just low enough to qualify as mildly mentally retarded, and that he functions at about a sixth-grade level.

The state puts his IQ at 77 and argues he does not qualify for special consideration. When Hill first sought to sidestep the death penalty based on his mental capacity in 1996, the state cited his employment history and military service and produced three experts who said he was not mentally retarded.

Georgia's first-in-the-nation law banning the execution of people with mental retardation included a provision that has made Hill's execution legal in the eyes of the state. It put the burden of proof on the defendant to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that he is retarded, something no other state does.

State courts ruled that Hill did not prove his case, based on contradictory evaluations from experts. Hill first was set to die a year ago, on July 18, 2012. It was delayed for five days, then until February, then until this week.

On Thursday morning, a county judge delayed his execution again, ruling that a state law that shields the identities of the pharmacies making the lethal drugs for death row inmates may be unconstitutional. The state immediately vowed to appeal.

The broader question is whether Hill can be judged mentally retarded. In 2000, state and defense experts differed on that question. Since then, the state's experts who said he was not have changed their minds.

Even so, under a 1996 federal law intended to speed up the lengthy death row appeals process, Hill cannot try again to avoid the death penalty in the lower courts. His only option is to go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That court last ruled on the issue in Atkins, in a decision written by former associate justice John Paul Stevens. "Mentally retarded defendants in the aggregate face a special risk of wrongful execution," Stevens wrote, concluding, "Death is not a suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal."

Thomas signed on to the dissents of former chief justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia — the latter arguing that mental retardation "can readily be feigned."

"Whereas the capital defendant who feigns insanity risks commitment to a mental institution until he can be cured (and then tried and executed), the capital defendant who feigns mental retardation risks nothing at all," Scalia wrote.

Georgia officials contend they have followed all the rules during Hill's more-than-20-year judicial odyssey. Their brief to the Supreme Court questions the sudden "non-credible" affidavits of the three original experts.

"These experts had the same information in 2000 as they have today," Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton says in her brief to the Supreme Court. They examined Hill then; they did not re-examine him before switching sides.

However, the judge who dissented from the 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals decision allowing the death sentence to stand takes the opposite view.

"The state of Georgia will execute a mentally retarded man when it carries out the execution of Warren Lee Hill," Judge Rosemary Barkett wrote. "A congressional act cannot be applied to trump Hill's constitutional right not to be executed."

That's the argument presented by Brian Kammer, executive director of the Georgia Resource Center, a non-profit law firm that provides free representation to indigent prisoners facing death sentences.

"This court is Mr. Hill's last resort," Kammer's brief states, because the federal district court, federal appeals court, state habeas court, Georgia Supreme Court and Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles all have denied his applications. "In this case, there is no 'fail safe' available to prevent a miscarriage of justice."

Courtesy: USA Today

Sharia courts for Muslim women soon
~~Rageshri Ganguly

Jul 15, 2013: BHOPAL: Unhappy with the judgments given by qazis, muftis and maulvis, 'women shariat courts' along the lines of Darul Qaza (Islamic courts) will be set up in the state by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) in the next six months.

In the first phase, the courts — Auraton ki Shariah Adalat — were set up in Dindigul (TN), Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad on July 6. In the second phase, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, UP, Bihar, Karnataka and Jharkhand will be taken up in six months' time, said a BMMA office-bearer.

The courts will handle cases relating to Muslim women, especially talaq, and dispense speedy justice. The BMMA is a secular organization led by Muslim women fighting for the citizenship rights of Muslims.

The all-women courts will function as per the injunctions of the Quran and dispense speedy justice to women. Initially, the BMMA will train 20 women on the rights of women as per the Quran.

"The BMMA received a lot of complaints from women from all over the country about unilateral divorce ('triple talaq') and refusal by husbands to give any maintenance or support," BMMA state convener Safia Akhtar told TOI. "There is practice of unilateral divorce, which is often communicated through a postcard, an SMS, a letter via relatives or just communication on the phone. All these go against the tenets of the Quran where there a time-bound process for divorce is laid down. The fact that husbands go to Darul Qaza (Islamic courts) and get fatwa (decree) from the qazi regarding talaq is unacceptable."

Courtesy: The Times of India

How the telegram was significant to Indian journalism

The Central Telegraph Office at Fort, Mumbai

A veteran journalist, who began his career in the late 1950s, remembers when the telegram was the lifeline of a news correspondent and the various codes used for stories, addresses and special occasions.

July 14, 2013: With the demise of the telegram, I can’t help but recall how this humble and jumbled piece of paper once played a very significant role in the successful discharge of duties by an outstation or overseas press correspondent. The telegram then was a prerequisite for a correspondent as that was the sole medium he could use for sending his stories.

 Newspapers all over the world would necessarily employ or retain a correspondent in important countries or even theatres of conflict wherever those developed from time to time. And they would send their stories through telegrams. Thus was born the legendary tribe of ‘war correspondents’.

Personally speaking, I have had a fascinating introduction to press telegrams as a rookie correspondent for a number of mainstream national newspapers in mid 1950s. Most newspapers in India then retained part time correspondents in the capital of a province or even in some small towns. Dehradun then was a tiny blip on the country’s political map, yet along with Mussoorie, it had acquired a formidable reputation as an important news centre thanks to the frequent visits there of Jawaharlal Nehru and other VVIPs.

 An outstation staff correspondent was then a rarity. Some of the newspapers paid a fixed monthly retainer fee while others paid retainer plus ‘lineage’. This meant that the length of the news per column inch would be paid. It was during that period that I learned the nitty-gritty of writing telegraphic news, keeping in view some essential points that would impact its length and consequently on the telegraphic charges.

The telegraph charges were per word not exceeding 10 characters. Another word would be added to the cost if it exceeded 10 characters. That way, I became accustomed to using smaller words; it was a good training. Yet, despite being particular on smaller words, I did not penny pinch and wrote full and clear sentences, unmindful of the cost involved.

A new ‘journalese’ jargon had by then come into vogue since Morse code only conveyed English alphabets. For instance, we wrote ‘stop’ instead of just putting a dot and expressed punctuations in words such like ‘COMMA’, ‘DASH’, ‘UNDASH’ and so on, so as not to leave any room for confusion or misunderstanding. We wrote ‘PARA’ when beginning a new paragraph. And at the conclusion of the message, we always put ‘EOM’ meaning ‘end of message’.

 A most proud acquisition was a press card issued by the Post and Telegraph department that enabled a correspondent to send press telegrams without any prepayment; the bills were sent to the newspapers concerned that would pay the same every month to the department.

Much later in 1970s, when I started a business, the telegram was one of my best means of communications with my international associates in the US and Europe. Even telex had not yet then made its debut in the Indian communication world. Happily, there was a much less expensive category of foreign telegram known as ‘letter telegram’, which virtually served the same purpose although it was not necessarily sent the same day.

Even in the 1970s, the telegraph technology had lacked direct overseas ‘connect’ and telegrams sent from Dehradun to the US would first go to the international telegraph office in New Delhi from where these would be further transmitted to their foreign destinations.

Yet, it was worthwhile since we were able to promptly communicate with our overseas business associates. Most of the companies had also acquired a special one-word telegraphic address that saved the sender much expense on giving a lengthy address.

My telegraphic address then was ‘liaison’ and that enabled us to maintain unhindered business correspondence. With the advent of telex in 1980s, the use of the telegram became very infrequent, yet we continued to retain and print our registered telegraphic address just as a matter of prestige.

Even though now SMS and Smart phones with various applications mean messages can be transmitted almost free in a matter of seconds, old timers will miss the grace of sending a ‘greeting’ telegram that we used to send on special occasions to our friends and relatives.

The telegraph department had then introduced nearly 40 greeting codes each with a figure; for example the Republic Day greetings had ‘19’ as a code and the sender just has to write ‘nineteen’ to convey the entire message that would be delivered on a specially decorated paper. These codes included greetings for almost all the religious festivals across religions.

They also included congratulatory messages on different occasions and even ‘happy birthday’ greetings. There was also a code for offering ‘best wishes for success in an examination’. More than all of that however, we will miss the telegram ‘boy’ who, during my business years, was a welcome daily visitor to our office and a special guest on occasions like Holi and Diwali.

Raj Kanwar is a Dehradun-based author and freelance writer.

Courtesy: Mid Day

Telegram no more STOP 100 STOP

India bids adieu to the telegram after 163 years

Kolkata, July 14, 2013: The queue grew longer as the day wore on outside the Central Telegraph Office in the city that gave birth to the telegram service in India about 163 years ago.

Mahinder, who has worked as a telegram agent for the
past six decades, wipes his tears on the last day of
the telegram service at the Central Telegraph Office
in Mumbai on Sunday.

The rush of people wanting to live the last moments of a facility sliding, by the minute, into history continued well into the late evening hours of Sunday. The office “was not expected to close for the day before midnight by when the numbers could have touched 350,” said chief superintendent, Subrata Kumar Das. Only a fraction of the employees was present to serve those choosing to send a telegram on its final day of existence. This was the result of a mass protest against the decision to terminate the services.

For customers using the service “on this historical day,” as one put it, the messages sent were the stuff that memories are made of. But the numerical shortcuts for set occasions — 16 was for “May heaven’s choicest blessings be showered on the young couple” and 100 for “Our deepest condolences” — were not of much use on Sunday. There was no code that stood for the telegram’s own demise.

“The day they stopped the telegram. One of the last ones to be sent. Keep it well.” This is what Aman Malik, in his twenties, wrote in what was his first telegram to his grandmother Naseem Malik in Agra.

“Today is the last day. I can tell you how much I love you through the telegram,” Kajari Bhattacharya said in another — meant for his two-year-old daughter in the city.

Septuagenarian Santosh Ghosh, who has done extensive research on the telegram service, does not, however, look at July 14, 2013 as the day the telegram died. “It will live on though in another form — a part of a memory….What is interesting about the telegram is how a mode a communication is so intrinsically associated with our history. Like our history, the memories of the telegram need to be cherished,” he said.

Mr. Ghosh’s book, The Sepoy Mutiny From Telegram Messages, is a historical account of India’s First War of Independence through the telegraph messages sent between 1857 and 1858.

“It was Sir William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, a physician at the Calcutta Medical College, who went to Lord Dalhousie and spoke about the necessity of telegram services in 1848. The work to lay telegraph lines started in November 1850 between Alipore Telecom Factory in the city and the Diamond Harbour Post Office,” he said.

The CTO building was earlier a Red Cross hospital and was converted to a telegraph office in 1906. Sitting in his office there, surrounded by equipment used to send telegrams in the past, is Mr. Das.

“True that this mode of communication has lost its economic viability; but the telegram had its undeniable advantage too – that of speed. The queues outside the counter have dwindled with time; the one today comprises those who will become a part of history,” he said.

“It is like the end of an era. But we always knew the day will come,” said Gour Chakraborty, who has been collecting telegrams over the past few decades and was one of those to have queued up. “In a few years from now, like philately is for stamps, the study and collection of telegrams would emerge as a distinct sphere of interest”, he added. He shot off six messages. “The contents are not as important as the date they are being sent on.” 

Courtesy: The Hindu

4 lakh laptops for students lying in UP godowns

Jul 15, 2013: LUCKNOW: Nearly four months after the Samajwadi Party government started distributing free laptops to students in line with Akhilesh Yadav's poll promise, over 4.4 lakh devices worth over Rs 830 crore still lie in government godowns exposed to dirt and rain water as the chief minister struggles to get time to distribute them himself. The chief minister has so far been able to distribute only 79000 laptops to students — a dream that was part of his 2011 election promise.

But seepage of rainwater into a godown in Lakhimpur Kheri last month, damaging 75 laptops, prompted the officials to get into a huddle to discuss storage and expedite distribution. Lack of storage space in districts and tehsils is a major concern, say government sources. "After the government tied up with Hewlett-Packard to supply laptops, the manufacturer was given a seven-month distribution period in which the computers had to be supplied. Their rate of delivery, however, far exceeded the rate of distribution. This led to a problem of plenty," said a senior government official.

At present, the HP facilities in the state capital have a storage capacity of over 2 lakh laptops. But with the existing inventory already touching optimum capacity, storage has become a challenge. The situation is worse in districts and tehsils where the facilities are ill-equipped to handle the monsoons. "If the laptops are not distributed soon enough, there is a possibility of damage to many more devices," he said.

But there is a bigger problem for distribution. The delay, the sources said, has been because of the chief minister's busy schedule. Though the laptops were to be distributed in districts by senior ministers, the decision was changed. In the run-up to the parliamentary polls, the Samajwadi Party government wanted the laptops to be distributed by Akhilesh himself. As a result, distribution was put off due to the CM's unavailability, the sources said. Now, an alternative plan is being prepared for distribution.

An official overseeing the distribution process, said, "Apart from the storing concerns, with computing gadgets, one also has to contend with technology getting obsolete. When the specifications for the laptop were sanctioned in 2012, it was regarded as state-of-the-art. But more than a year later, new products are beginning to hit the market."

There is also the worry about bad publicity if the devices were to malfunction. "Even if one laptop were to malfunction, it will mean a huge loss of face to the government," said a senior official.

Courtesy: The Times of India

It's Debatable: Death penalty: Necessary or evil?

July 14, 2013: Vaughn Ross is scheduled to be executed July 18 for a 2001 double homicide in Lubbock. Texas recently executed its 500th prisoner. This week, Arnold Loewy and Don May debate the death penalty. Don writes an independent blog for lubbockonline.com and Arnold is the George Killiam Professor of Law at Texas Tech University School of Law.

Don: Capital punishment is a necessary and vital component of a civilized society. The primary purpose of the death penalty is to rid a society of violent criminals so they will have no further opportunities to harm others.

Liberal parole boards, judges, governors and presidents are quick to release violent criminals for almost any reason and often push to return criminals to the street as soon as possible. Execution dates are delayed for as long as possible, with the continued pursuit of reprieve.

Imprisonment without execution gives criminals the continued hope of a parole, an early release, a pardon or even a chance to escape.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a law in March 2011 banning any further convicted criminal executions. He also commuted the sentences of death row inmates to life sentences without the possibility of parole or release.

Quinn wanted to make sure a future conservative governor would not have the chance to execute anyone currently on death row.

He offered this excuse for signing the bill, “I have found no credible evidence that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on the crime of murder and that the enormous sums expended by the state in maintaining a death penalty system would be better spent on preventing crime and assisting victims’ families in overcoming pain and grief.”

The death penalty is indeed a deterrent. Executed criminals no longer pose a danger to civilized society. No executed criminal has ever committed another crime.

Liberals claim Judeo-Christian theology mandates criminals be forgiven and not executed. This is not the case, and liberals dance around the issue hoping conservatives do not understand the Bible.

The words of Genesis 9:6 tell us why murderers should be executed, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in His own image.”

There is no record Christ ever said thieves and murderers should not be executed. Christ did not tell the thieves being crucified with him they did not deserve to die.

Executions are the only way to eliminate the worst criminals. Murderers, rapists, armed robbers, child molesters, terrorists and other doers of evil are permanently eliminated when executed, never again to commit another atrocity.

Executions ensure a liberal judge, governor, president or parole board will not release a dangerous criminal back into society in the future.

Criminal executions should be swift, frequent and inexpensive.

Arnold: Whatever else might be said for or against capital punishment, it most certainly is not “a necessary and vital component of a civilized society.”

Almost every society other than the United States that we consider civilized have abolished the death penalty (e.g., Canada, Australia, England, France, and Germany.)

And all of these countries have a significantly lower homicide rate than we do. Indeed, there have been times when they have refused to return a fugitive from justice out of fear he will be subject to capital punishment.

As for Governor Quinn’s observations, they are absolutely true. There is neither credible evidence nor logic to believe the death penalty deters murderers.

If there were, it would be hard to explain the lower murder rate in countries that do not have capital punishment and even the generally lower murder rate in the U.S. among states that have abolished capital punishment as opposed to Texas and Florida, which are among the leaders in both their murder and execution rates.

The governor was also quite correct in regard to the cost of maintaining capital punishment. During the recent economic crisis, some states have abolished capital punishment in the name of fiscal conservatism.

Dr. May’s explanation of why he thinks the death penalty is a deterrent goes to the issue of restraint, not deterrence. He is quite correct an executed offender (or for that matter a wrongly convicted innocent) will not offend in the future.

The question is whether such restraint is necessary given the cost of capital punishment. I suggest it’s not. We have a super-max prison in Colorado where we send the worst of the worst offenders (e.g. shoe bomber Richard Reid).

So far as I am aware, no one has ever escaped from that prison or harmed an innocent person outside.

Given we do sometime convict innocent persons, such as Timothy Cole, it seems to me those supporting capital punishment have the burden of proving some good will come from the administration of capital punishment that would not come from life without parole.

Frankly, I have difficulty finding any, and certainly none that’s worth the risk that, under our fallible system, some day a state official will have to tell a mother: “We’re terribly sorry we executed your son, who we now know was innocent.”

Don: There is no evidence even a single innocent person has been executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated. If there were, the left would remind us at every opportunity.

Even though innocent people are sent to prison, that is no reason to close our prisons and to release dangerous criminals into society. Most releases from death row have been on legal technicalities. As far as is known, those who were innocent of a capital crime have consistently been identified and released by the legal appeals system in place.

The left tries to equate the physical act of a criminal murdering a victim with the physical act of the state executing the murderer and uses this “equivalence” as a reason to end the death penalty.

While each act of killing may be a physical equivalence, there is no moral equivalence because the state is removing a violent menace from society.

A life sentence without parole for a violent criminal is not equivalent to executing the criminal. With a life sentence without parole, the condemned has no reason to avoid killing other prisoners, guards and prison employees, as he already has the maximum sentence allowed by law.

Many Europeans describe the death penalty as a barbaric ancient relic with a thirst for vengeance.

Such feelings ignore the barbaric and evil nature of crimes deserving of the death penalty, deny the value of the lives of the victims and their families, and elevate the importance of the criminal above that of the victims.

The claim Britain and other European countries have fewer violent crimes than the United States is a myth.

Eurostat, the European Commission’s database, revealed a “77 percent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offenses in the UK” between 1997 and 2009.

Violent crime has increased 67 percent in France over the past decade, with a rate of 504 violent crimes per 100,000 population.

There are more than 2,000 violent crimes a year per 100,000 population in the UK and 1,677 per 100,000 population in Austria.

The violent crime rate continues to decrease in the United States, with the 2011 FBI Crime Statistics report listing “386.3 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants.”

Opinion polls show the American people favor capital punishment by more than 2 to 1, with 67 percent favoring the death penalty and only 28 percent opposing.

Research has shown racial minorities have been treated fairly when it comes to the death penalty. Research from Emory University has shown “capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect; each execution results, on average, in 18 fewer murders.”

A polite and safe society is well-armed and eliminates its violent criminals.

Arnold: Although it is true that current system has worked to save many innocents from execution (e.g. Juan Melendez, a former guest speaker at one of my symposia, who spoke after being released from death row in Florida after spending 20 years there for a crime of which he was eventually found to be innocent), the system advocated by Dr. May would not.

Under his view, trials should be swift, and the appeals process short.

Under his system, we would not tolerate saving an innocent man from death if it took 20 years to establish his innocence.

Thus, instead of riveting my audience with his harrowing story of surviving the process, he’d be dead, and Dr. May would continue to claim there is no proof we have ever executed an innocent person because the proof wouldn’t be there. Who spends time trying to prove a dead man is actually innocent?

Have we ever executed an innocent person under the current system? Well one cannot be sure, but I do know that a few years ago we executed a man from Texarkana named Willingham, who had been convicted of murder of his three children by burning down their house with them in it.

We later learned that the evidence upon which the arson/murder was predicated was junk science and totally unreliable. Nevertheless the state of Texas went through with his execution, evidently believing in his guilt despite the lack of evidence to prove it.

So, was he innocent? Who knows? The only thing we know for sure is there was no credible evidence to prove him guilty.

Any thought victims’ families are better off with capital punishment is belied by the evidence.

In jurisdictions that do not have the death penalty, family members typically feel vindicated when their loved one’s killer receives life in prison. But in jurisdictions with the death penalty (e.g. Texas), frequently a jury verdict of life (which is more common than death) causes the victim’s family to believe that his/her life was undervalued.

Finally, those studies which show for every execution there are a certain number of lives saved (one says 8, another says 18) have been debunked by other studies as methodologically flawed.

Indeed, if they were true, it would be hard to know why the murder rate is as high as it is in Texas and Florida. So, I am inclined to credit those studies which challenge the life-saving power of capital punishment as flawed.

So, because capital punishment is not a meaningful deterrent, is fiscally irresponsible, and is administered by us, flawed human beings, it should be abolished immediately. 

Courtesy: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal